Bulletin Board


Raising Standards of Pensions Administration - May 2004


RSPA will be holding it's AGM on 11 May 2004 and Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer has kindly agreed to host the event at their London offices again this year. Further details will be issued shortly to members of RSPA and other parties that have expressed an interest. If you have not yet joined RSPA, the application form is available on our website www.rspa.org We look forward to seeing as many of you as possible at the event.

We have three working groups busy on the content of the website. The first is the Communications and Development Working Group, led by Andrew Inchley. The group is the custodian of the material providing guidance for setting up a scheme, ongoing administration, the transfer of administration and communications with scheme members, an area where a better understanding of good practice would significantly improve the service provided to members.

The second group is the Winding-up Working Group, led by David Herbert. In terms of future work, the Pensions Bill and subsequent legislation will keep them busy for the next year updating the Guidance Notes to reflect changing law and practice.

RSPA has had significant support from OPRA for these Guidance Notes and they have completed a review of the material for these two groups. They suggested a number of improvements which have now been updated on the Winding up material and will shortly be incorporated into the Communications and Development material.

The third group, the Systems Group, is new and is led by Ken Edis. The group started by drawing up a comprehensive list identifying the stakeholders in pension systems. They hope to design the first material output in the form of a map on the RSPA web site. Visitors will be able to select a stakeholder group and see their interrelationship with the system highlighted.

As well as these groups, we are also working closely with the ABI, who have their own raising standards initiative, and cross membership of the relevant working groups will ensure that we learn from each other without re-inventing the wheel.

In the meantime, we are always keen for new members and for volunteers to join our working groups. So, if you have a particular interest that you want to pursue, please contact me at:

m.goy@pensionsmanagement.co.uk
www.raisingadminstandards.com